Assaults on American values
The rage: It goes beyond the police killing of George Floyd
The rage over the killing of 46yearold George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police officers is well justified. The violence, looting and destruction that erupted during protests is not.
To understand the mayhem on display in Minneapolis and other cities is not to condone it. It went beyond the death of one man who pleaded for his life — “I can’t breathe” — as an officer’s knee was pressed against his neck for more than eight excruciating minutes. It was about myriad other times unarmed African American men have been killed at the hands of police. It was about the history of justice that proved so maddeningly elusive, time after time, even in many of the egregious incidents captured on video.
It was about the reality that some Americans remain vulnerable and unprotected as they go about their daily lives merely on the basis of the color of their skin, decades after the civil rights movement brought laws designed to cleanse the discrimination that has haunted our nation’s history since its inception.
Neither the arrest nor even the conviction of Derek Chauvin, the fired Minneapolis police officer seen on the video with his knee on Floyd’s neck, can fully assuage frustration. Chauvin has been charged with thirddegree murder and manslaughter. It’s just a start on the path to justice. The local prosecutor anticipated there could be more charges against the three officers who were captured on video standing by as Floyd’s life was taken away.
Their acquiescence in the face of inhumanity suggests a sickness that goes beyond the actions of one officer.